Aperion Audio Verus Grand Loudspeaker System Reviewed

[broonsby]

Since I couldn't compare them directly to any other speakers in an A-B comparison I cannot say directly how the VGB's would stack up against those listed above.

I can compare them with B&W 805 Matrix II's since I owned a pair for 10 years. The 805's were true monitors and would expose every flaw in the system. They were very picky about the electronics used. The VGB's were very happy with a Marantz receiver. No lack of imaging of sense of graininess. This is a real plus. I could see these being run with a Peachtree Audio amp very nicely.

As for the Aperion Intimus line, I'm not so keen. While better than the current B&W 600 series I wouldn't go out of my way for any of them unless it was the 6 Tower if imaging is your thing.

[gene]

I just posted this Interview with Aperion Audio on Loudspeaker Design Philosophy

[farrow099]

I've heard so many great things about the Aperion Audio Grand Verus speakers that I decided to purchase a pair of the Grand Verus Bookshelf loudspeakers. I ordered the accompanying stand but didn't realize they weren't sold in pairs... So I get a call from a gentlemen at Aperon AUdio around 2pm the next day alerting me that I've only ordered one stand. Score one for them catching that. I gave the ok to add another stand and up the total of the order. Three hours later I get a call from a different gentlemen from Aperion Audio. He is calling to tell me that my bank is denying the new total. I assured him there is significantly more than the total in the account but if they would like they can cancel the transaction and I will simply reorder. The Aperion Representative told me that he can't do anything with the transaction because his system is showing it as "shipped". He was certainly nervous, stressed, and having software difficulties. I happen to be a windows server admin so I can sympathize with annoying software glitches. I told him to go ahead and ship the original order and I would just order another stand later. He replied that he couldn't do that because the order was locked as shipped with the new total. While fiddling with the software he apologized profusely and stated that 3 of the staff were away at a convention, another one had left early, and it was close to 5 their time.. He then told me that while fiddling with the order he had somehow created duplicate orders and commented about how he'd hear about that on Monday! I told him I'd call the bank and asked if I should call back. He gave me the phone number and said he would be the one to pick up so I didn't need his name! I asked for the order number and got off the phone. I called my bank and went through the automated shuffle for a few minutes before reaching a bank rep. I explained I had an order on hold and needed to know why. She said the Fraud Dept had put it on hold for unknown reasons, heh. She then "conferenced in" a Fraud dept rep. I verified my identity and had the fraud alert removed. All and all it took about 4 minutes. (according to my phone history) I then called back Aperionn Audio and reached a young woman. I explained the situation, she was clearly nervous just answering the phone. She explained that most of the staff had left for the day and asked me to call back Monday. I explained that I just spoke to a gentlemen there 5 minutes ago... She said, '"Oh you spoke with Mark (err something) and asked if she could take a message." I explained the situation and she clearly didn't know what to do! So I said you can just write something like, "Order#1234 called, fraud alert cleared, order can be processed". Rather than doing that she proceeded to tell me about how short handed they were today, as I had already heard from the previous gentlemen. I tried to break in but she continued on with her story! After she finished nervously explaining how late it was and how short handed they were she again asked me to call back Monday. I chuckled and said yeah, sure, that's fine... She then told me that they will have great customer service in on Monday to process the order! I told her that's fine, but the previous gentlemen had told me while fiddling with his software that he had somehow created duplicate orders so she should still leave him the message... She then told me he might call me back within a half hour but she couldn't promise anything! I just laughed it off and told her to have a good day... THen I told my brother how retarded this company is!

I REALLY hope their audio engineers are brighter than their customer support staff!

[Adam]

Best of luck! Hopefully you didn't actually remove the fraud alert that popped up when the second order was placed by accident.

[valvesnvinylfan]

Hi Farrow, on behalf of everyone here at Aperion Audio, please accept my sincere apologies for your experiences while contacting us—that is definitely not the quality of service we strive for, nor does it resemble the typical interactions we have with our customers on a daily basis: There’s simply no excuse for the jumbled, confusing and irrelevant communications we’ve conveyed to you, and for that I’m very sorry. It’s definitely sobering to hear that, in your case, we failed to deliver on our standard of excellent service—so our customer service lead will be personally contacting you today. And while we appreciate your understanding on our system glitches, a large factor in the art of promising and delivering great customer service means that we do whatever we can to make sure those glitches never affect your ordering from us—and for the vast majority of our customers out there, we’re happy to say we’ve delivered on that promise enough that it’s become one of the hallmarks of our company’s reputation. So once again, we’re sorry for your experience, and we really appreciate your feedback, positive or otherwise: It’s the most valuable gauge we have on whether we’re living up to our reputation, so we promise we will continue to strive to make good on it. Thanks for sharing your experience.

Oliver Amnuayphol

[farrow099]

Update 10/11/11 - 11:15am EST

Aperion called me back yesterday and offered to ship 3 day shipping. So that was nice of them.

However, as of this moment my bank account is still showing two Aperion Audio charges on hold\in process. One for the first amount and one for the updated amount. I'm going to give it another day, but it looks like they may have double charged me as I had suspected might happen. I'm hoping one of them will go through and the other will be canceled before I have to call back!

I should note that I've ordered from their online competitor, EMP, a few times in the past and have yet to have any issues.

[farrow099]

I'm guessing Aperion is still having issues because I just received another $.01 Aperion Audio charge to my debit card...

I guess it's time to make some calls again! ugh

[coilman]

just want to know which Psb's speakers were the reps refering to? I would also would love to see a shoot-out between the VGT--salk ST's and the Imagine speakers still searching for my audio dream-- and hopefully evrerything works out for you farrow

[valvesnvinylfan]

Hi Farrow, thanks for the updates; as far as the double authorizations you have, you're correct, those were part of the system glitches that affected your order initially, so my apologies again there, but there shouldn't be anymore issues with your card: That initial pending authorization should drop off naturally, but if you'd like, I can request the authorization be removed? All I need is your issuing bank's phone number (usually located on the back of your card), so if you'd like for us to remove that first authorization just let us know and we'll be happy to help, thanks!

[farrow099]

"valvesnvinylfan", I'm going to give it another day to clear up.

In the mean time I have a quick question...
Does Aperion typically provide a tracking number?

I signed into the Aperion website but my account only shows two orders of stands now; One is marked partially shipped but no tracking number is listed. Nor did I receive any emails about shipment from Aperion. It also doesn't show the speakers at all in my order history, which is odd.